Saturday, December 16, 2006

tales of my busted ankle

i sprained my left ankle two days ago. i was going down the steps of our third floor apartment and was almost out the gate, when whoosh! i suddenly flew. i have no recollection of my anti-gravity moment, but i do know that i landed.. badly.

quite immediately, my ankle became swollen and painful as heck. obviously, i ended up not going to work that night.

i slept off the worst part of the pain then. there were no tears for this crybaby, just grogginess and a lot of discomfort. that, and impatience: i wanted to know when i was gonna be better. i was declaring platitudes of "i'm gonna get better by tuesday, i swear it!"

the next day the swelling tamed down, and i realized how hard it was to be (temporarily) physically incapacitated. don't get me wrong, i already am, given my awful eyesight--but i manage to get by with what my HMO manual calls "corrective devices." this was different. walking around our apartment with one good foot and another one dragging behind was...odd. all right, annoying. in tagalog, hasel. given my legendary impatience, i even went so far as to hopping on my right leg--of course it became painful later, ha ha, serves me right.

strangely, my inner hypochondriac didn't jump to life, as it normally does in situations like these. see, i've never, ever been confined in a hospital. i always made sure that i'd be well enough not to be dressed in a hospital gown, injected with intravenous fluids, and fussed over by well-meaning relatives and friends. the thought alone scares me.

so i went to a nearby clinic a while ago and had my foot x-rayed as well. now i walk abnormally fast, given my impatient streak, but today i was limping steadily along. funnily enough, i was right--the doc advised me that i could go back to work tuesday.

i miss normal mobility, i'll have you know--then again, this may well be an unexpected break. in fact i spent the whole of last night importing cd's to the laptop and updating my ipod list.

and yes i know i should be more careful next time

1 comment:

djong tan said...

i can relate, somewhat. i didn't sprain my ankle, but i fell down while i was walking and incurred a huuuge gaping wound with a bruise border. for two weeks, i couldn't walk too well, and i couldn't kneel. it's so easy to take those things for granted. :p